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Tech Code ID# 10T

So the sun is shining a bit brighter on my technical woes. Last weekend, my satellite internet connection at my cabin was back where it should be (800-1000 kbs download and 150-200 kbs upload), not exactly the DSL speed at home, but that’s as good as Hughes gets.

However, that’s not to say their support phone line solved my problem. I keep nagging them about my terrible experience (almost 2 hours on hold waiting for escalated customer support), and their response by email (which again is a donotreply@hughes.com address, thanks a bunch) still contends that “my problem was solved with the steps provided by customer support” which is total bull turds since their “steps” where that I should call customer support! What kind of Orwellian logic is that? But my desire to pester them is dwindling… until the next time Fred in the Switch Department decides to Flick Off the Amplifier Beam for Arizona.

Now there is the mystery of my dim screened MacBookPro. I had done everything Apple suggests to remedy, restarting, zapping PRAM, Resetting PMU. So did the dude in the store. So I get a call Thursday from “Brian the Tech” who reports the screen lights up after doing a PMU reset. WTF?

I do have a rather strong feeling the fault lies in my hasty action while using Windows XP in the Bootcamp mode (actually I was in the middle of my Hughes satellite trouble making, when they insisted I go through this monkeying around with MSIE proxy settings (ignoring the fact that 24 hours earlier everything was honky dory with my connection with a good speed test in Firefox in OS X…. so it is their fault I was using XP!). I had to leave quickly, and without thinking that I was in that operating system, I simply closed the lid like I do in OS X to put it to sleep, but somehow in XP, I triggered a meltdown. My small clue is in a MacBook PMU manager utility for Windows under Bootcamp made by the lovely named Quacks Like a Duck Software:

Since Apple has provided wonderful hardware to run Windows on, but provided less than wonderful drivers for said hardware, I’ve coded up this app that makes running Windows on your MacBookPro a bit more pleasant…
* Resets the backlight to full on before the system enters suspend.
* Restores the previous backlight value upon resume from suspend.
* Requeries the backlight control device after resume from suspend.

I a majorly guessing, but this utility suggests there are some issues of suspending Windows and the hardware of the backlight control.

But that is beside the point, perhaps….

So now I have the other end of an experience I have had before when helping colleagues and office mates with their computer. I get a frantic call, like, “Alan, my computer won’t do ______”, I saunter up, and say, “Just click Open” or something benign like restarting, and the problem disappears, some sort of proximity effect of computer karma transference. And I have heard among the computer support, there is a special identification code to report for these scenarios of a customer code of 10T.

Yup, that is a case ID number of 10T.

One more time… ID10T

That’s me.

So I’m back in business, after updating all the working files I had created on my older laptop.

Well almost.

I had a task to try on Windows, and I goot up, the dithery Windows flag passes by and I get…

lsass.exe: Unable to Locate Component
The application has failed to start because DNSAPI.dll was not found. Please re-install the software.

Now that is terribly diagnostic!

Clicking the OK box, leaves Windows on a blank screen. The only exit is pulling it from life support (yanking the power supply and battery). This lets me get back to my sane OS X system where I can do some googling. Some of the results insinuate it is a variant of some SASSER virus, hard to imagine since my Norton is up to date. But one obscure reference suggests I can copy the said missing DNSAPI.dll for somewhere else (not specific) to where it should be( /WINDOWS/system32/). So in OS X, I search my XP drive for this file, and find a few of them scattered about in arcane named Windows directories. The most likely candidate is sitting in WINDOWS/system32/dllcache, so I copy it to the higher level directory, cross my fingers, and boot into Windows.

Ohmygosh, it actually worked! Time for a victory dance! Take that Windows!

I feel a streak of good luck.

And I have a post it note that says, “When finishing windows, Pray, Cross Fingers, and only Exit via the Start Menu”

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An early 90s builder of the web and blogging Alan Levine barks at CogDogBlog.com on web storytelling (#ds106 #4life), photography, bending WordPress, and serendipity in the infinite internet river. He thinks it's weird to write about himself in the third person.

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